


The Terrible Deeds and Unexpected Demise of Spring-heel Jack

by doctornerdington



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Implied Slash, M/M, Monsters, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Slash, Spring-heel Jack, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctornerdington/pseuds/doctornerdington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Sir Malcolm off seeking the solace of work and travel in the western moors, Vanessa Ives, Ethan Chander, and Victor Frankenstein must band together to counteract a new threat to the women of London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Terrible Deeds and Unexpected Demise of Spring-heel Jack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finkpishnets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/gifts).



It had been slow, since the end of it: so very slow since Mina had gone for good. Vanessa couldn’t think when she had been more at peace; nor yet, when she had been more deadly bored. Sir Malcolm, having forsaken Africa but being unable to entirely shake his wanderlust, had taken himself off to Grimspound in the western moors, citing a new find of Bronze Age burial artifacts that required immediate preservation. She wished him well, heartily and warmly, but made no move to accompany him. He needed to grieve, she thought; needed to journey for a time alone, to face himself as father confessor, as absolver, and to pronounce and accept his penance. His face looked gaunt and drawn as his carriage pulled away. She turned and withdrew into the shadows of the great London mansion.

The household had been quiet for more days together than it had ever been since they had taken occupancy, continuing undisturbed for what felt like an age. She knew she should feel relief, but the respite lay heavy on her, making her sluggish and tired. Days upon days she laid in bed to an unseemly hour, staring dreamily up at the canopy, smoking her slender Turkish cigarettes until the room spun around her, or reading desultorily. It reminded her of her illness, but then again, it did not – and that, she supposed, was the appeal. It was only the increasingly pointed sidelong glances of the maids that would drive her at last to make her toilet, else she would have stayed abed for days.

But now, her staff had withdrawn in despair of her ever properly rising, and Vanessa was lounging in bed. She lit another cigarette – the tenth or twelfth of the day – and inhaled, the smoke curling deeply into her lungs. She relished the bite of it; wondered when small pains had turned to pleasure for her. Surely it had not always been so.

Slowly, she became aware that a sound was disturbing her reverie. Out in the hall: a low, small sob, quickly bitten back, and punctuated with occasional hiccups. The sound of stifled sobbing, Vanessa thought, should not be made in these rooms – not within her hearing, at any rate – ever again. Pulling on her dressing gown, she rose from her bed and passed through her inner chamber into her sitting room, where she found her newest maid sunk against the wall in tears.

Vanessa could not quite remember the girl’s name – was it Mary? Or had Mary gone? Was it Alice, then Mary, then Polly? She was liberal with her staff, and never cruel, but she had not yet found a girl who could tolerate her admittedly eccentric habits for more than a month or two together.

When she saw her mistress approaching, the girl’s eyes widened in horror.

“Oh, Miss Ives! I’m so sorry to have disturbed you, miss. I thought you was sleeping.”

Young, Vanessa thought. Very young. Very untried.

She crossed the room and sat herself down beside the girl, pulling her gown more tightly around her shoulders. Vanessa herself was so slight that they were nearly the same size, girl and mistress, leaning against the wall. The girl looked about to bolt; Vanessa took a thoughtful pull on her cigarette and, with an appraising glance, handed it over.

“Miss?”

“Go on. We’ll share,” she said conspiratorially. “You seem to need it.”

With trembling fingers, the girl brought the cigarette to her lips and took a short drag, puffing the smoke out quickly without inhaling. Vanessa smiled. “Again?”

The girl did as she was bid, relaxing fractionally when Vanessa took the cigarette back and finished it herself.

“Now then,” she said, raising a hand to wipe a stray tear from the girl’s pretty cheek. “What has so upset you? These rooms were full of misery during my illness, and I won’t have misery here now – not if I can help it.”

A hiccuping sob escaped from the girl at this, although she quickly clamped her hands over her mouth to stifle the sound.

“Oh miss!” she whispered between her fingers. “I don’t mean to upset you, nor to bring misery to your door. I’m so very, very sorry. Please don’t dismiss me, miss! Please! Only, my mother needs my wages, and I don’t know what she’ll do if you send me off.”

“No, no. No fear of that, if you do your work carefully and respect the privacy of this household. I am not angry. I am only concerned to find a member of my staff so distraught. You have nothing to fear from me. Understood?”

The girl nodded uncertainly.

“Good.” Gently, she took the girl’s her chin in her hand, tipped her head back. “Now, my good girl. Tell me all about it.”

“You’ll think me very foolish, miss.”

“Ah,” Vanessa smiled. “You never can tell what I will think.” Her hand stroked the girl’s face in a soothing rhythm, almost hypnotic.

The girl began, lowly, to speak. “I’m so scared, miss. The things I’ve heard from my sisters in the past week – it’s enough to turn your raven hair white, miss.” She hiccupped again. “I’m so very frightened…”

The story that she spun in her simple, artless way pricked through Vanessa’s lassitude and quickened her heart in a way she found, to her very great surprise, that she had missed. Vanessa listened, and she thought, and then she thought some more, not noticing the silence that had fallen over them.

“Miss?” the girl prompted at last.

Vanessa started. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, smiling briskly. “I’m entirely sure you have nothing to worry about, but I shall have Sir Malcolm’s boy walk you home for the next few nights. He has little enough to do while Sir Malcolm is away.”

“Oh, thank you miss!” The girl dried her eyes on her apron one last time, and stood. “You’re very kind, miss, no matter that the other servants say you’re queer.” And then she blushed scarlet at her own impertinence, and turned and scurried out of the room, back to her duties.

But Vanessa remained on the floor, thinking. “Spring-heel Jack,” she mused. She’d not heard the moniker before, but then, for all her experiences she had barely scratched the surface of London’s monstrous underbelly.

It was time to do some research.

***

Vanessa shook open the evening paper and found the account buried at the bottom of the eighth page.

> OUTRAGE ON YOUNG LADIES IN CAMDEN. — During the past weeks, much alarm has pervaded the neighborhood of King’s-road, Camden-town, and caused terror in the minds of the female portion of the inhabitants. The cause of all this fear on the part of the females is the so-called “Spring-heel Jack,” a tall man, or brute, enveloped in a large black cloak. As soon as night comes on he patrols the above road, but, on the appearance of any police officer, he darts into the darkness and disappears. He remains hidden until he should spy a female consorting with a gentleman, and then he follows them until they part. When the female is alone, he suddenly jumps from his hiding place, as if from thin air. The spot generally favoured by this vagabond for his assaults is the College-grove, a dark and badly paved turning, leading from the above road to Camden High-street. The way in which the females are frightened and assaulted in this place is as follows: the monster jumps from his hiding spot, and throws open his outer garment. Stretching out his arms under his cloak makes that article of clothing have the appearance of a huge pair of black wings, presenting a most hideous and frightful appearance. He catches at the unfortunate woman with hands resembling talons, often shredding her garments and piercing her skin with considerable violence in an attempt to keep hold of his captive. The monster then vomits forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, stunning and terribly burning his victim; his eyes are said to resemble red balls of flame. Without uttering a word, he then releases her – often unconscious or insensible – and bounds away in inhumanly long strides. He has been seen to scale walls and jump fences that an average man would not attempt. His victims, the number of which now surpasses a dozen, are recovering from disfiguring burns to their faces, and report a persistent and understandable fear of walking out.

Her eyes hardened as she read. “Something must be done.” She strode to her desk and prepared two telegraph forms. When she was finished, she rang for her maid.

***

An hour later, Ethan Chandler and Victor Frankenstein were seated with her in Sir Malcolm’s study, each in his usual place, large brandies in hand poured out by Vanessa herself. A hearty fire kept the winter cold at bay, but the rain and wind butted against the windows, and Vanessa shivered in her silks.

Ethan looked up from the newspaper she had handed him.

“Unusual,” he granted.

“Have you heard nothing of this ‘Springheel Jack’? I thought perhaps poor Miss Croft might have mentioned something to you before she died, familiar as she was with Camden. A rumour? Some bit of gossip?”

Pain flashed across Ethan’s face, stifled nearly as quickly as it had appeared.

“No,” he replied. “Nothing.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and turned to the other man. “Medical opinion, Doctor?”

“Difficult to say with any certainty,” Victor replied in his quick, nervous voice. “There was a time I’d have diagnosed a collective form of hysteria brought on by latent sexual guilt, but we’ve all seen things recently that make me hesitate to write it off so quickly. It could be collective madness – or it could be something much worse.”

“Hmmmm.” Vanessa was gazing into the fire. “I’ve had a bit of a tête-à-tête with my little maid, who is frightened half out of her wits about it all. She tells me that girls in Camden are too afraid to leave their houses. Respectable mothers are keeping their daughters in, whores are off the streets entirely, and many are suffering from the lack of income. This … this _monster_ is hurting the most vulnerable among us. He is keeping women off the public streets of their own neighbourhood, and is using their fear to prevent them from getting their livelihoods. It is obscene that such a thing should be allowed to continue.”

“Well now,” Ethan drawled. “Who said anything about letting it continue?”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “What can we possibly do about it, though? Isn’t the purview of… I don’t know, the police?”

“The police!” Ethan scoffed. He stood, and strode over to the window nearest the door, glanced out into the darkness. “Over a dozen victims – how effective have they been so far? You think the police care about poor girls in Camden? You think they care about whores?” He dropped back into his chair.

“I did not say that. I just don’t think we three are necessarily the people to take this on. Not alone.”

The three sat in silence for a time, aware that this was the point in the conversation at which Sir Malcolm would usually have stepped in with his own theories and ideas, his swift decisions. Each felt his absence keenly.

“Gentlemen,” Vanessa said at last, “I have a plan.”

***

Several hours later – now approaching midnight – the trio alighted from a hansom cab on a dark corner of the King’s Road. Vanessa was now dressed in rough linens and a coarse wool coat; she was glad of the warmth her costume afforded. As the cab rattled away over the wet cobbles, a strange silence settled over the street: it was, indeed, unusually empty. The air felt muted around them, for although the rain hand stopped, a heavy fog persisted. Vanessa gestured at a small lane jutting off from the thoroughfare about fifty yards north of them, a dark and gaping hole between two grubby shop fronts.

“This way, I think.” She led them towards it.

There wasn’t a soul on the street as they slipped into the passage. In truth, College Grove could barely be called a street at all; the dank passage was frequented only by workers passing up into the High Street during the usual hours of business, and by women conducting less reputable business at night. But tonight, it was deserted. Though they strained their senses, no sound or sight indicated the presence of anyone other than themselves – monster or man.

They paused at the top of the Grove. Vanessa’s velvet eyes shone as they hadn’t for many days, with dark amusement and excitement. Far beneath sparked a glimmer of rage.

“Let us draw out some company,” she whispered. “Shall we begin our pantomime?”

She did not wait for an answer, but grabbed Ethan by the hand and plunged into the darkness of the passage, leaving Victor to stand an invisible guard. A dozen or so yards in, and she pulled Ethan forward, hard, into her body with a strength he did not expect. Off balance, he crashed forward like a drunkard, falling with her into the wall behind them. In an instant, her mouth was upon his; these were not the chaste kisses he would have thought to have from her, the well-heeled lady, but the carnal and knowing embrace of the whore. Taken aback, he pulled away; but her eyes flashed defiance, flashed a prohibition: you may not denigrate me for this. He grasped her face in his hands and dove to meet her mouth again, a furrow deepening between his brows as he claimed her mouth in kind. It was pantomime, and it was not. It was a surprise, and it was a vast relief: the gasp after long minutes of holding one’s breath. Vanessa felt him respond, his body young and eager, and the liquid pull of desire coalesced within her, as well. She leaned into him, smilingly fiercely into his mouth, and their bodies aligned. Neither knew if she was playing a part when she reached down, searching out his trouser fastenings with one hand and drawing him closer with the other. He pushed into her hand, only once, and with that it seemed, came back to himself.

Abruptly, he pulled back, away from her touch, gasping. His face was stricken. Vanessa’s own breath was coming quickly, and she turned away, collecting herself.

After a moment, she looked at him again. Raised a gentle hand to his cheek.

“Forgive me,” she said softly. “I forget myself. I forget your grief.”

He grasped her hand, pulled it down and kissed her palm, his eyes squeezed shut.

They stood like that for a long moment, she cradling his face and he willing her to hear his silent apology. Her hand, when it came away, was wet and salted. When he finally looked up, he was once more the cocky American, his smile only slightly more tremulous than usual.

“Young Victor will serve, Miss Ives,” he said finally, under his breath. “I reckon his affections lie in directions other than your fair sex, but he can act the part.”

She nodded; pushed him playfully away – conscious that eyes could be upon them – and beckoned to the man she knew kept watch at the top of the street. When he trotted up, she eyed him speculatively. “We all of us have our secrets, and you hide yours better than most. You act well,” she whispered.

Victor jangled some coins in his pocket and did not meet her eye. She realized he was gazing with strange intensity at Ethan, behind her, and wondered that she’d never seen this attentiveness before. She wondered if Ethan himself had; Victor was, indeed, a consummate actor.

“With all respect, Miss Ives, it’s a small matter to pretend to want something one does not,” Victor whispered back, still looking at Ethan, who made no response. He turned away slightly, then, and when he turned back it was as if his entire being transformed. A young rake stood before them, a swell with more money than sense, drunk and swaggering and slumming.

He raised an eyebrow, and at Vanessa’s near-imperceptible nod, grabbed her about the waist and drew her, laughing and chattering inanities, further down the passage. Ethan started after them for a moment, then withdrew into the shadows, the silent watcher.

Winding their arms about each other and stopping to kiss every few steps, the couple played their parts to perfection, for it was, now, entirely a performance – though, it is true, a performance by familiar and even guardedly affectionate friends.

Coming to the half-way point of College Grove, Vanessa darted forward, out of Victor’s reach, then turned and drew him playfully into a slight recess: an abandoned and locked doorway just off the pavement. He pinned her into the corner, as if holding her immobile, and drew up her skirts as he mimed unfastening his own trousers. He lowered his mouth to her ear as he thrust against her.

“Anything yet?” he whispered.

“Nothing,” she replied, beginning a string of small, rhythmic moans. She thrust back against him with increasing vigor. She liked him very much in that moment: his lack of delicacy with her, his lack of propriety.

“Is it a dud?” He sped his own movements to match hers.

“Not yet. He doesn’t attack until afterwards.” She pitched her moans higher, slammed her body against his. “When we finish, fall back,” she whispered, and then she arched against him, clawing at his back as he drove a final thrust home and cried out.

She fell forward onto his chest she breathed into the crook of his neck. He smelled of the morgue. “Go find Ethan. Keep watch, but do not approach unless I call for you.”

He nodded slightly, and she put her hands in the middle of his chest, pushing him off firmly. He stepped back and mimed the fastening of his trousers while she straightened her skirts. He turned to leave, but she grabbed his arm roughly, and raised her voice: “You’ll not forget my pay?”

In character, he stammered an apology. He drew a handful of coins from his pocket and pressed them into her hand.

“Thanks, sir. You’ll not find me here again, but if you’re after wanting another ride some night, you can find me at the Bell.” She laughed lewdly, drunkenly, and he pulled away, staggered back up the passage. His footsteps faded into silence.

Vanessa smirked broadly after him for a minute or two, then sank down into the doorway, counting her coins. All was quiet and still around her, although she knew Ethan and Victor must be concealed somewhere nearby.

A dozen minutes passed, and then a dozen more. The fog thickened, creeping up the passage and pooling around Vanessa’s skirts. She shivered with the chill, and wondered how long her vigil would last. Never enjoyable, being the bait.

A clock struck one. Vanessa shifted on her uncomfortable stoop. Drew out her flask and took a warming sip. The quarter hour rang, then the half.

And then, finally, it began. From somewhere deep in the fog, a mad, high-pitched laugh echoed. It seemed to come from the rooftop above her; the next minute, from the alley to her left. The voice was everywhere, and nowhere, and it was closing in on her from – she could not tell from which direction. She could do nothing but wait for the creature to appear.

And at last it did, spectacularly. A figure swooped down out of the darkness; he seemed to coalesce from the vapours at the very edge of her vision, descending – or so it appeared – from the roof of a building just up the road. How he moved, she could not tell, but his moniker was apt: he swooped and sprang and leapt like a thing more than human. As he came closer, she was able to see him more clearly. Coming quickly towards her with his cape billowing behind him like wings, he seemed, from where she was sitting, to be super-humanly tall, to be moving in ways unnatural for a man. He did not stride, did not seem to hurry, and yet his silent advance was inexorable. Had she not been expecting him and watching for him, he would have been upon her before she could have reacted at all.

As it was, he came more quickly than she expected; within seconds he stood before her. She rose, as silently as he, and they faced each other.

Like a lover, he reached for her. Gloved hands dug into her upper arms, drawing her in, painfully. She felt the bruises that would appear later, ink pooling in cream, and carefully did not struggle against him. He held her at arm’s length for a moment, and though his face was in shadow she felt his eyes, burning behind tinted spectacles, rake over her, cataloging and pronouncing judgment. Hating. To her very core, she shuddered.

And then he moved, all in concert: his arms pulled her inescapably in, and at the same time, his mouth opened in a gaping howl. Deep in the cavern of his mouth, she saw a spark; the scent of some incendiary chemical filled her nostrils. The danger made her blood sing.

He braced for her to pull away, but she confounded him: dove forward, instead, and sealed her mouth around his own, wrapping her arms around his neck and head and stifling his flame before it could catch. Even as he struggled to break away, she held tighter; pulled his incendiary breath deep into her own lungs.

“My love,” she sighed into his shocked face when she finally loosened her death-grip on his neck. She turned her head and exhaled the now-harmless gas into the fog.

“We are none of us poor women so defenseless as we look,” she whispered, “nor yet will we be without our vengeance.” And she leaned in and kissed his mouth again, this time entering him with her tongue. He seemed aghast, paralyzed with the shock of her, and she pursued her advantage: licked and bit at the chemical taste of him, even as she slipped her small, razor-sharp blade out of her sleeve and neatly between his ribs, easy as breathing.

He did not, at first, feel the pain. It was only the spill of hot blood onto the cobbles – obscenely unlike the sound of rain – that made him realize. There was a shocked gasp, a grunt, and Spring-heel Jack moved back and away: one step, two. The dark stain grew on his clothing, and the metal tang of blood bloomed around them. Mutely, he crumpled to the ground, face up, clutching his chest. His mouth still gaped, but now desperately, seeking air, seeking in vain to prolong his vicious life.

Vanessa stood back and watched the pool around him grow. Her eyes were hard and unrelenting; she wiped her blade on her handkerchief and sheathed it once more in her sleeve. The handkerchief she tossed to the ground in disgust.

Footsteps approached, and they were unhurried: the danger, after all, had passed. In a moment, Ethan and Victor flanked her on either side.

“He was a man after all,” Ethan said, looking down without surprise. “Not a monster.”

“There’s little enough difference,” Victor offered.

They stood, the three, and watched until the death rattle passed and the body lay still. Then they turned as one and strode out together into the London darkness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Spring-heel Jack was a folkloric monster in mid-Victorian London. Reports of sightings began in 1837, and continued for several decades. I've included a Victorian penny dreadful illustration of him above. Parts of the newspaper article Vanessa reads are also taken from contemporary accounts. 
> 
> As always, comments and feedback appreciated!


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